Daoxian massacre

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The Daoxian Massacre or Dao County Massacre ( Chinese 道 縣 大 屠殺 / 道 县 大 屠杀 ) took place in Daoxian County ( Hunan , China ) and lasted 66 days, from August 13th to August 13th, by order of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party October 17, 1967. Much violence was used during the Cultural Revolution and 4,519 people were killed. In all eleven counties and cities, including the Daoxian itself, a total of 7,696 people were killed while 1,397 people were forced to commit suicide . At least 14,000 people took part in the massacre and most of the victims were members of the " five black categories ".

During the " Boluan Fanzheng Period ", the Chinese Communist Party viewed the Daoxian massacre as one of the "unjust, false, flawed" (冤假错案) cases of the Cultural Revolution and the victims were rehabilitated. However, only a small number of those involved in the massacre were ever punished and some were sentenced to life imprisonment .

background

During the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, millions of people who were considered "counter-revolutionaries" or who did not side with Mao Zedong were persecuted. The “ Outstanding Leader ” Mao advocated the revolutionary movement and the attacks on those in authority who he believed were complacent, bureaucratic and anti-revolutionary. The local Red Guards attacked anyone lacking revolutionary credibility and eventually turned against those who did not fully support their efforts and intentions. In August 1966, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a directive entitled “The Chinese Party's Central Committee Decision on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (also known as the Sixteen Points) to define the goals of the revolution. Later that month, Mao launched huge Red Guard parades with his Red Book held up.

The movement grew, but also split into independent movements and factions of the Red Guard, each with their own vision of the movement. Despite official instructions and suggestions from the party leadership, the local forces were left with their own definitions of the goals of the revolution, as a result of which many functionaries brought violence into their commune and collided with the citizens. Nobody wanted to be considered "reactionary", but due to a lack of official guidelines for identifying "true communists" almost everyone has been targeted for abuse. People tried to protect themselves and escape the persecution by attacking friends and even their own families. The result has been a series of attacks and counter-attacks, factional battles, unpredictable violence and the collapse of authority across China.

Emergence

At the time of the massacre, Dao County had not yet established its own local revolutionary committee to respond to the " counter-revolutionaries ". So the officers of the local army were the administrators of the leading group of the county for the action "Capture the revolution and promote production".

At two district meetings on August 5 and 11, Liu Shibing, political commissioner of the district headquarters of the militia , spread a conspiracy rumor: Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces were attacking mainland China; the class enemies of Dao County, especially the "Five Black Categories", had planned to work with Chiang to instigate a rebellion. In addition, Liu claimed that a number of people under the Five Black Categories planned to kill all Communist Party members and the poor and lower middle peasant leaders in Dao County. Liu Shibing, along with Xiong Binen, the Deputy Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party Committee in Dao County, ordered all militia and security officers to launch an urgent preventive attack against class enemies. Although they did not specifically mention the word "kill", all levels of party leadership understood the meaning of this strong signal. There is no doubt that the highest government officials were the decision makers. Not only did they spread a rumor to justify the impending massacre, they also commissioned their subordinates to carry out the killings.

The murders

Almost anyone could be a victim during the massacre. These included both infants and pensioners. Those who were killed or driven to suicide were not only those considered the " Five Black Categories ", but also people who had personal resentments and conflicts with local officials and residents.

The district and parish officials had their own brutal and lawless way of organizing the massacres in their area. Before the executions, they often held a short (only a few minutes) “trial” in the lawlessly created “Supreme Court of the Poor and Low Peasants”. As expected, the "judges" were the local leaders who arranged the killings in advance. When the victims - who were almost always in the midst of corruption and lawlessness - were sentenced to death, they were handcuffed by an armed militia and taken to a mass rally to publicly denounce their "crimes". Sometimes the local CCP and militia officials believed that it could be dangerous to make the victims public. They then secretly sent a team of armed militias to the victims' homes to carry out the slaughter. The victims were often informed on the way about problems that had arisen which forced them to return home, where they were finally already awaited and killed. The victims were killed in a variety of ways, from gunshots to beatings to beheadings. Those directly involved in the executions were rewarded for their work with higher salaries than they would have earned through their regular civil servant employment. This explains the high number of murderers involved; a number of local CCP and militia officials personally directed the killings. Not surprisingly, given the lack of prosecution, local criminals also took part in the violence. Most of those in the militia were socially outcasts and disrespected people who tried to gain honor by participating in the killings.

Mass violence in Daoxian eventually spread to other counties in Hunan Province when other groups sought to purge "counter-revolutionaries" from their own areas. Finally, on August 29, after severe complaints from survivors of the massacre, the CCP Central Committee and Hunan Province Revolutionary Committee sent the 47th Field Army to force all local CCP and militia members to stop the killings. However, there were still sporadic murders until October 17. A total of 4,519 people were killed or driven to suicide in Dao County alone, and more than 14,000 are believed to have participated in the killings. Only a small proportion of the perpetrators were ever punished and none were sentenced to death.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fifty years after the madness sparked by Mao's Cultural Revolution, a book uncovers horror of mass murder spree Independent , accessed October 4, 2017.
  2. ^ Hecheng Tan: The Killing Wind: A Chinese County's Descent Into Madness During the Cultural Revolution ( en ). Oxford University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-19-062252-7 .
  3. ↑ 蒋方舟: 发生 在 湖南 道 县 的 那 场 大 屠杀. In: New York Times. November 9, 2012, accessed July 7, 2020 (Chinese).
  4. ↑ China's Hidden Massacres: An Interview with Tan Hecheng ( en ) January 13, 2017.
  5. ↑ The Killing Wind ( en ) March 8, 2017.
  6. ↑ a b c d The Dao County Massacre of 1967 | Sciences Po Mass Violence and Resistance - Research Network ( en ) April 15, 2019.
  7. ↑ a b Xie Chengnian (谢 承 年): 道 县 “文革” 杀人 遗留 问题 处理 经过. In: Yanhuang Chunqiu. Retrieved July 7, 2020 .
  8. ^ A b Introduction to the Cultural Revolution Stanford University: Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute For International Studies , accessed October 4, 2017.
  9. ^ The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, 1966-1976 San José State University Department of Economics , accessed October 4, 2017.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f The Dao County Massacre of 1967 Back to Mass Violence and Resistance - Research Network home , accessed October 4, 2017.
  11. ↑ China's Hidden Massacres: An Interview with Tan Hecheng China File , January 13, 2017, accessed October 24, 2017.